This weeks post in the OSX System Preferences series is going to cover the Language and Text pane. This pane allows you to change the default language of your Mac, set alternate languages with quick shortcuts for the bilingual, and edit your time and date formats.

First I would like to start off with telling you about an awesome free program I use quite a bit when setting up new Macs. The program is called Monolingual (Monolingual.sourceforge.net). This program allows you to delete all of the unnecessary language files from your computer. Every Mac comes preloaded with full dictionaries, grammatical rules, and system languages for over 75 languages. These language files take up a little over 10GB of storage on your computer. For those of you using a Macbook Air this will free up some much needed hard drive space. With Monolingual you delete only the languages you choose to, so you can still have a bilingual computer if needed.

When you first click on the Language and Text pane this is what you will see:

This pane allows you to order your languages by your most preferred to your least preferred. In any basic Mac installation this will automatically be set to your local language. If you live in the USA it will automatically set English as your most preferred. This list is targeted towards polyglots (people that speak multiple languages). For you polyglots out there you will need to set this list in order of the languages your would prefer to use on your computer while on the Web and in emails.

The Text tab at the top, when clicked on, should look like this:

This pane allows you to set Keyboard shortcuts to automatically convert specific text combinations into symbols. For instance (c) will automatically show as Ⓒ, which is the copyright logo. This setting does not affect your web based typing. This will only change symbols typed into Applications installed on the computer like Word, Excel, and Text Edit. The Smart Quotes option is the pane is also a localization tool. For instance in Germany when you write a quote it goes something like this: „Guten Tag.” Enabling the smart quotes will automatically change a “quote” into the proper local use of the quotation marks.

The third tab in the Language and Text pane is the Formats pane. It should look something like this when you click on it.

Again this tab is all about localization of your time and date formatting. This pane allows you to set the proper display and usage of your time and date displays. It will also allow you to set the proper currency display and measurement units.

The fourth tab in the Language and Text pane is the most important tab of this pane. It looks like this when you click on the Input Sources tab:

For you polyglots (I love that word) this pane will allow you to switch between languages easily and quickly. All you have to do to set this up is check the languages you would like to be available to you and click the “Show Input menu in Menu bar” check box. Once clicked you should see a little flag icon up by your clock at the top of your screen. When you click on this icon you can select which language you would like to use and it will automatically convert your keyboard, dictionary, and display language throughout all apps on your computer. Also, if you would like to be able to use a different language in each window make sure you click the “Allow a different one for each document” box or it will automatically convert your everything, including your in process documents, into the chosen language.

Well that about wraps up this weeks System Preference series post. As always if you have any question or comments please leave a comment and I will do my best to help you out. I will be back next week showing you what the Security & Privacy pane can do and how to make your Mac as secure as it can be! Have a great week!

For this weeks continuation of the System Preferences series I am going to go over the Mission Control pane. This pane allows you to set up some shortcuts that will allow you to navigate around your computer much faster.

When you open the Mission Control pane this is what you will see:

The first check box gives you the option to show your Dashboard as a space. Your dashboard is a desktop that allows you to add some widgets for quick info and content. It doesn’t allow me to take a screenshot of it but if you would like to see it then all you need to do is click this icon:

Selecting the option to show it as a space will add it to your Mission Control window like this:

The second option will automatically arrange your app windows in Mission Control. The most recently used apps will have the largest preview windows. You can click on these previews to open the application.

The third option, “When switching to an application, switch to a space with open windows”, will automatically open the application in its Spaces window. Spaces allows you to set up multiple desktops. To create another space you need to open Mission Control, then move your mouse up to the top right section of the screen. A + button will appear that will look something like this:

Once you click that icon a new desktop will appear. It will look like this:

Each of these spaces are totally independent desktops. You can have specific programs allocated to run in each Space so the applications don’t overlap. I love this feature because it allows me to run Photoshop on one desktop, Firefox on another, and various other apps on a third. I can switch between desktops and use each app in its own separate environment.

The final four drop down boxes allow you to set keyboard shortcuts for the given option. These are just additional shortcut keys to help you move even faster through your computer without having to use the mouse.

And at the very bottom of this window is the “Hot Corners…” button. This will slide in an options pane from the top of the window that looks like this:

Each of these four drop down boxes list the same options. Hot Corners allows you to activate the selected option just by moving your mouse cursor the appointed corner. I personally use these hot corners more than I do any keyboard shortcut. They seem easier to get to for me and are much more fluid when you have to move the mouse to select what you need anyways.

Well that concludes this weeks post in the System Preferences series. Next week I will explain the Languages & Text pane and I will also show you how to free up some much needed storage space by deleting unused languages on your Mac. Until next time, Thanks for reading and please leave a comment!

In this weeks continuation of the System Preferences series I will show you what the Users & Groups pane can do and how you can make your Mac your own or how you can set it up for your whole family to use. I did jump ahead to the System row and I will go back next week to finish the General row.

The Users & Groups pane will allow you to set up separate logins for each of your Macs users. I set up a system for a customer a few days ago and she wanted 8 different logins. One for each of her children, herself, and her husband. Setting up your Mac like this will give each of your kids a password protected account (that you as the administrator can always access), a personal home folder so all of their files are not mixed up with everyone else’s (including iTunes music), and each user can set their Appearance settings how they like it without interfering with everyone else’s settings. Also, when setting up an account for your kids make sure you don’t make them an Admin. If you set them as an Admin they will be able to change anything on the Mac they want (including deleting accounts and locking you out of the Mac). If you choose to use parental controls there is a Managed with Parental Controls option.

So to start off when you open the Users & Groups pane you will see this (with your username instead of mine):

The left side of this pane shows you the current Users and Groups that are set up on your Mac. The current user will always be listed at the top. On the right hand side is a summary of the HIGHLIGHTED users information. The Apple ID space will show your Apple ID (iTunes login email). I have blanked mine out in the picture. You will need to click the lock at the bottom of this window to edit any of your settings. This will require typing in your password (or if you don’t have one it will unlock automatically).

The login options will show you a window like this:

These options will affect all users on the Mac and change how the login window will appear when you start your Mac. Automatic Login will log into the selected account automatically every time you turn the Mac on. This is helpful for a single user Mac but still not recommended for security reasons. The rest of the options and check boxes are pretty self explanatory except for one or two things. Fast User Switching allows you to be logged into multiple users on your Mac at the same time and switch between them quickly and the Network Account Server is a very advanced option that we will get into at a later date. It is definitely not needed for a basic set up.

In each user window you will see the Open Parental Controls button. This will show you the following screen:

I am going to get more in depth on how to use the built in Mac Parental Controls in an upcoming post but I wanted to show you that you can access that option from the Users pane. For now if you are setting up a child’s account, I would recommend poking through the options here. It is fairly easy to use and if you don’t understand something you can always click the little ? button in the bottom right corner. If you are interested in doing more in-depth parental controls please check out my post on K9 Web Protection by clicking this link.

The final thing I wanted to touch on tonight was the Login Items tab. When you click on that tab you will see the following:

This pane will show you all of the Apps and background programs that turn on when you login to your account. If your Mac is taking a long time to load once you log in then most likely the problem will be listed here and you can turn it off. Everyone’s window here will look different depending on what you have installed on your Mac. The checkbox will only Hide the app when you turn your Mac on. If you want to make sure an App will not boot up when you login you need to click the “-” button. This window will also give you the option to add Apps to your login process. I, personally, have Mac Mail, Google Chrome, and Adium boot up automatically because I use them constantly and it saves me the time of clicking on them. To add an app to your login process just click the “+” button and locate the app in your Applications folder.

Alright well thats it for this week. Next week we will go back up to the General row and I will tell you all about the Mission Control pane and how to greatly improve your navigational speed on your Mac.

So the past few days I have been working on some video intros for my upcoming Screencasts. I would like to know which one you guys like more. Please vote! The winner will take all.

#1

#2

In this weeks post on the System Preferences pane I am going to tell you all about the Dock settings. There is not many settings to fiddle with for the Dock but they play a huge role in how you use your computer.

The first option in this pane is the Size slider. This will change the size of your dock from side to side. This is a great way to make sure you have enough space on your dock to show you all of your icons.

The second option is the Magnification slider. When this is turned on, your icons will get bigger when the mouse is hovering over the icon. This is very helpful if you have a hard time seeing the small icons.

The third option is the radio buttons for Position on Screen. These settings will change where on the screen your dock is shown. There isn’t really any advantage with changing the location of the dock other than ease of use and personal preference.

The fourth option is a drop down box that allows you to select the way your Apps are minimized (minimizing means shrinking the window, which on a Mac is the yellow button in the top left) into the dock. The Genie effect makes it look like the app is getting sucked into a bottle (just think of the Genie from Aladdin). The scale effect keeps the App window as a square but makes it smaller as it minimizes.

The final four options are check boxes that will further allow you to tweak some more settings. Turning on Minimizing windows into the App icon will make it so when you minimize your App, instead of showing you that it is open on the right side of your dock, it will put your open windows into the icon and you would just click on the icon to re-open or maximize the App. If you choose to Animate opening applications the icon for the App will bounce in the dock while it is opening. I highly recommend doing this as it lets you know that you have indeed clicked on the App and it is opening. The automatically hide and show option will do exactly what it sounds like. When the dock is hidden and you move the mouse to where your dock should be it will pop up. This also allows for a better usage of your screen space. The final check box will allow you to turn on an indicator light for your open apps. When this is on you will see a small light below your icon in the dock.

Well that is it for this post of the System Preferences pane series. Next week I am going to skip ahead a bit on the pane and explain the Users & Groups settings.

Today I am going to talk about my Top 5 most recommend Mac apps. Without further blathering here you go !

#1: Handbrake
Handbrake is one of my favorite apps on my Mac. The main feature of this program is it allows you to easily convert video files to other formats. My favorite feature of this program though is that it allows you to rip DVDs to your computer. I use this when I need to put movies onto my iPad or iPhone for a long car ride. My son is able to choose which movie he wants to watch and I don’t have to keep up with a bunch of DVDs. And the very best feature is that its totally 100% FREE and nothing can beat that!

Handbrake’s Home Page

#2: VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is the only media player I will ever recommend. If you have a lot of video or audio files and cannot play them in iTunes then chances are VLC will be able to right out of the box. I personally use VLC to play all my media files and DVDs. The UI, or User Interface, is much simpler than iTunes and allows for a lot more control over the way your files are played and viewed. This is also a totally FREE app and it cannot be topped!

VideoLan AKA VLC Home Page

#3: Coconut Battery
This app is a little more on the techie side. Coconut Battery reads the memory of your battery and tells you what the current max capacity is. This will allow you to see how much charge your battery has lost and how long you can expect it to live. It also will give you other stats like Current Charge, Original Capacity, Age of your Mac in months, Battery temperature, total load cycles (how many times you charged and depleted the battery), and current usage in wattage.

Coconut Battery Home page

#4: SMC Fan Control
This again is another techie app but can save you from a sweaty lap! SMC Fan Control does what it says and nothing more. This little program will allow you to control your computer’s fan speeds manually. With todays new Macs this is very important to have. For those of you with an I7 Macbook Pro you can thank me later . All you do is set your fan RPM speed and apply and it speeds up. This is also very helpful for you CS5 multi-taskers and gamers as it keeps your temperatures down and decreases video and cpu lag.

I couldn’t find a homepage for this App but if you Google it it will come.

#5: Parallels Desktop
Last but definitely not least in Parallels Desktop for Mac. This is the only paid app I recommend for new Mac users. This handy program will allow you to run the Windows operating system on your Mac WHILE still being able to use your Mac. In general terms it will allow you to run Windows like it was any other app on your computer. All you need is a Windows disk and license (any version of Windows back to 2000) and it does the rest for you with some easy to follow set up options.

Parallels Desktop for Mac Home Page

Welcome back for the second post in my System Preferences series. Today we will briefly touch on the Desktop & Screen Saver options. These are fairly simple and there is not much to go over.

Posted below is a screenshot of what the window should look like when you click on the button in the System Preferences window. If you would like to see the full image right click on it and click View Image or Open Image in New Tab. To right click on a mac use two fingers at the same time or Ctrl+Click.

As you can see in the image there is two options at the top. The first is Desktop where you can change your desktop wallpaper settings.

On the left hand side is a preview of your current desktop image and the folder select pane. The folder select pane will allow you to select different folders containing images that you can use for your wallpaper. At the bottom on the left you will see a + and – button. The + will allow you to search your computer for a folder that isn’t listed in the pane already and the – will delete the reference to a folder you have already added.

On the right you will see a drop down menu that lets you select how the image is shown. Fill Screen will preserve the height and width percentages of the image but may contract it to fit the screen as best it can. Fit to screen will make both width and height fit the screen and may distort any image you have. Stretch to fill will enlarge the image to fit the screen but will preserve height and width proportions. Center will center the image if it is too small to fill the screen and Tile will use a small image and paste it as many times as necessary to fill the screen.

You will also see, on the right, a preview window that will show you the contents of the selected folder on the left and 3 Check boxes at the bottom. If you would like your computer to change the background automatically the check the Change Picture option and a time interval. This will automatically change the background at the selected interval to another image in the folder you have selected on the left. The Random order button will make it randomly choose the next out of the selected folder instead of moving to the immediate next image.

The Screen Saver button at the top will open a window that will look like this: (again right click if you would like to see the whole image.)

This window will allow you to choose your screen saver. There is not many options in this window to go over. On the left is your list of available screen savers and on the right is a preview window of the selected screen saver. A screen saver automatically turns on after your computer has been idle for an interval of your choosing (3 minute – Never). Also on the left are + and – buttons. These will allow you to install or delete any screen savers you have downloaded from the internet (be careful when downloading! Screen savers are notorious for harboring malware). The options button on the right will allow you to change the options (if there is any) for the currently selected screen saver. Test will instantly enable the screen saver so you can see what it looks like.

At the bottom left of this window is a button that says Hot Corners… This button will allow you to set shortcuts into the corners of your desktop. When you move your mouse cursor to that corner it will turn on the shortcut you have set to that corner. Assigning one to the top left if you click on the Apple button a lot can get super frustrating!

Well that is it for this post of the System Preferences pane series. Come back next week to see the next installment about the Dock Settings!

For those of you who have yet to update to Lion make sure you pay attention to this tip so you can make it right when you do update!

In OSX 10.7 (Lion) your desktop icons for Internal, External, and Network hard drives are not enabled by default. When I updated I was ticked that I no longer had the quick shortcuts and had to go through the menu to get to them. After a few weeks of being angry I decided to find a way to fix it. I clicked through every preferences option on the computer, and in the spirit of most computer issues, I found the solution on the last thing I tried.

If you close out all your windows and click on the desktop (any area of your wallpaper that does not have an icon on it) you should see Finder in the top left. Click on that menu and you will see “Preferences…”. The window that pops up will look like this:

As you can see the first four check box options will enable the Hard Drive shortcut on the desktop. I prefer that all connected Hard Drives show up for ease of access. Make sure you have this set up the way you prefer and what makes the most sense for you.

Your internal Hard Drive (the Hard Drive inside your computer) will always appear. All of the other drive types will only appear when you have it plugged into your computer or are connected to it over your network.

Please leave a comment if you have any questions or a suggestion for a future post!

-Kyle Greenwood AKA The MacMan

Today I am going to cover the General Settings pane. This pane allows you to modify your most basic settings.

The first option is Appearance. This will allow you to change the color scheme of your Mac. You can choose between blue and graphite. These do not make a huge difference in your Mac experience but if you are like me then you like your Mac to be just right.

The second option in this pane is Highlight color. This allows you to pick any color you want to use to highlight text. The default highlight color is Graphite. I am not a big fan of having such a bland color. I like to have selected text very bright and obvious so I have chosen my favorite shade of green. The pictures below show how much different a color can make.

The second section of options all relates to how your computer shows the scroll bars and how you use them. These will effect the scrollbars of all Apps and windows on your computer that utilize them. The first option in this box allows you to choose how your scrollbars are displayed. I prefer to have mine visible only when I’m scrolling. This hides the bars at all time unless I am actively scrolling a window. By hiding the bar you are able to eek out a slightly larger window (helpful in browsers and for graphic designers). The second option in this box will control how you scroll when clicking on the scroll bar. If you have your scroll bar hidden this option will not be very helpful (your bar is hidden, how can you click on it?). The smooth scrolling option is exactly what it sounds like. You will probably not notice much of a difference whether this is on or off.

The above photo is your sidebar. It shows in all of your finder windows and the are quick shortcuts to different folders on your Mac. The option to change sidebar icon size will make those shortcuts bigger or smaller.

The Number of Recent Items options will change how many of each type show in your Recent Items. To see your recent items click the Apple at the top left of your screen then put your mouse over the Recent Items > option. The Restore windows option is fairly self explanatory. When you close a finder window and then open another one it will automatically bring you to the previous view before you last closed it.

LCD Font smoothing is also just like it sounds. It really isn’t noticeable until you get up to a text size of about 75 pixels. The large fonts without smoothing will look very rough and pixellated.

Well this post should get you going through the General Settings pane like a pro. Next week i’ll cover the Desktop and Screen Saver pane!

The first advice I give to all new Mac users is to familiarize themselves with the System Preferences pane. This one window will allow you to easily change almost all of your system settings in one window.

Everyone’s layout will be slightly different depending on the version of OSX and if you have any installed preference apps. Widely used programs like Growl and Geek Tool (along with any other pane you install) will always be at the bottom of the window.

Each one of these sections have a huge number of options and settings you can change. You can customize almost everything on your Mac with these settings. I am going to go through the most used settings and tell you what you can do and how to modify them safely. These will be posted over the next few days!